


3 times Harry calls for God, and 1 time he calls for Lord Voldemort

by inverseR



Series: (The Beatitudes) Matthew 5:3 - 5:10 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, M/M, The Magnus Archives is essentially a template for suffering, blaspheme, buzzfeed unsolved au, the only plot device I know is making my characters suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-23 01:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverseR/pseuds/inverseR
Summary: Harry thinks Tom has an ego that is visible from space, it is the only explanation for the way Tom snarls when Harry murmurs verses of the Bible.Harry isn’t particular religious to begin with, and it’s not like he memorised a lot of the Bible. It’s just the Beatitude Commandments. Harry thinks if he ever loses Tom in a crowd, he can find him just by reciting it. Like, Harry would go “Blessed are ye – ” and Tom would scream something foul and murderous and there he would be.It’s a shame that Harry can’t make a meme out of it.Jokes aside, Harry thinks Tom genuinely is upset about verses from the Bible. After shouting out his fury, he has that look on his face that he tries to hide from Harry. A look that looks quite a lot like hurt.***In which Harry is Ryan Bergara, and Tom is Shane Madej, and no this isn't a roleplay fic.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: (The Beatitudes) Matthew 5:3 - 5:10 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704340
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	1. Matthew 5:3

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

_The End, The Buried_

The haunted pub smells like the cheap ale that Vernon drinks, and Harry’s wrists are suddenly sore from phantom bruises. The soft parts just under his ribcage _aches_ painfully, and there’s the lower edges of his spine that throb with muddy-static-pain. The kind of tell-tale aches of hunger pangs.

Tom must have noticed something too, because he is uncharacteristically _chatty._ Normally, Harry is the talker in these excursions. This time he allows Tom’s soothing baritone to fill the silence. Mocking remarks about the décor, the open disrespectful _doubt_ that he casts on the late occupants that supposedly haunt the establishment.

The condescension in Tom’s voice is familiar, and Harry laughs along.

They end up sitting at the bar and Tom gently nudges Harry into talking again, coaxing the history of the pub out of Harry. Harry talks, recites the information he’d researched before. Tom nods along, listening only enough to quip derisive remarks and Harry laughs. This too is familiar enough that Harry pretend he is at Tom’s couch, a bowl of chocolate popcorn on the sofa nearby and laptop balanced haphazardly in his lap.

But the _smell_.

Eventually, they move to the deeper areas of the pub. Their first stop is the staff lounge and Tom offers prompts for Harry to talk again as he flops onto a dusty couch with a grimace. “This is _filthy_ ,” Tom complains, and Harry sits down next to him before he offers.

It is old velvet, matted with dust and abandoned cobwebs. Harry runs his hands over the fabric, reminding himself again this is not the Dursleys’ and their sunken leather couch, with an imprint of Dudley creaking on it. Harry recounts of a bloodstain of dubious origins on the very couch they are sitting on.

Tom’s arm drops behind Harry’s back, and his hand squeezes against his hip gently, warm and comforting. “Maybe it’s menstrual blood,” Tom theorises out loud, dismissing Harry’s more gruesome theories already. “Hey, someone could have been on the period, felt exhausted, and then laid down for a nap here. It’s a legitimate theory. More legitimate than murder.”

“This place not spooky enough for murder?” Harry teases.

“Hmm, no,” Tom deadpans.

They head down into the supposedly “spiritually active” area of the basement. And the _smell_ , the smell it’s…Harry is drowning in it, he stumbles back into Tom’s chest, and he wants to bury himself there. He can’t smell anything but stale cheap ale.

The staircase down the basement is narrow, too narrow for the whole filming crew. They would have to explore whatever is down there alone.

They discuss it briefly, and Tom heads down first, as always. And Harry chatters to the rest of the crew anxiously.

“I’m going to go down there and crap myself,” Harry admits to the camera, he’s smiling, but he feels like he wants to vomit out everything in his stomach. “Tom’s probably down there, having the time of his life, mocking everything and anything and then I’m going to go down there and whatever he’s pissed off is going to take it out on me – and I’m going to crap myself. There will be footage of me that the editing team will have to go through, frame-by-frame, of the exact moment I shit myself. I will have to burn these pair of pants, and Tom is going to laugh himself sick and he is going to tell this story every time we film now about how I shit myself because of wind or the building settling.

“But it’s real.” Harry gulps. “It’s real, and I’m going to be alone.”

Tom comes back up, zippy as a kid in Christmas morning. Harry wants to hurl.

“Very cramped, not much down there,” Tom reports. “Actually, nothing at all down there. Humid though, I’ll have to wash my hair when we get back to the hotel.”

Harry smiles at Tom, but it feels more like he was trying very hard not to vomit onto Tom’s face. Tom’s hand comes up to cup his shoulder, his thumb smoothing a sliver of his neck, and Harry exhales all at once. “You are going to be okay,” Tom decrees, Harry manages a nod and heads towards the staircase.

There no banisters for the staircase, just these high vertical bars that are increasingly dense the lower you go, until it’s just all wall. The lower Harry goes, the louder he can hear his own breathing. There is no other sound, and he thinks he should talk, but when he opened his mouth and that _smell_ comes flooding into his palette, putrid and foul. Everything just chokes in a dead lump in his throat.

He manages to get to the bottom of the stairs, and Tom was right, it is cramped. The basement has barely a foot over Harry’s height, Tom must have spent the entire time down here with his back hunched. And there really wasn’t much down there. Harry could walk through the entirety of it in about six steps and back. It’s…it’s nearly the exact dimensions of the cupboard under the stairs, if not for the empty shelves packed into the walls

But it’s

That _smell_ and the no-air of the low ceiling, the packed mortar wet from humidity. Harry feels like he is being buried alive. He gulps, and it is _loud_.

“This is the, uh, basement,” he rasps, and he rattles the lore of what he found online about the basement. Fear a stinking, strangling thing in the base of his throat. He tries to think of Tom, of Tom outside, probably laughing along with the crew.

It’s quiet down here and Harry tries to think of Tom, he probably turned off his flashlight and basked a bit in the silence – but all Harry can feel is the loud, loud _whine_ in his ears, trying to acclimatise to the pressure and silence and non-air of the basement.

“Alright guys, I’m going to turn on the spirit box and turn off my flashlight,” some hysterical part of him rattles out a laugh. “If I piss myself, no one can see it.”

The spirit box’s static rips through the air, loud and violent and Harry can’t hear himself breathe. All light is gone, and Harry

Harry is distantly aware that he is supposed to be talking, but Harry feels like there is a very high probability that he is screaming.

He is _buried_ in some cramped space and loud-loud static that echoed everywhere. The sound as grating as asphalt and dirt. He thinks he might be dead. He thinks he is dead.

He opens his mouth to scream, but then that _smell_ fucking chokes through him, and if he isn’t dead he is going to be.

 _There is a hand clutching his wrists, dragging him across the floor even as he screams and screams, he is ignored even as shrieks and – and he doesn’t_ exist _. No, if he exists than he should be alive, but he isn’t_. _He is dead. And –_

“HARRY!” Tom roars, the sound of his name echoes through the walls and Harry drops the spirit box in shock. It stutters in complaint, but doesn’t do anything more than that. “ – Kingdom of Heaven,” he hears himself say.

Tom might have said something more, something mean and unnecessary, but Harry scrambles for staircase, Tom’s flashlight blinding him and he trips on the last step up. Tom catches him and he buries his face into Tom’s neck for a moment, he breathes Tom in greedily, shaking. Tom holds him just a moment, before straightening and helping him up.

“You were _praying_ ,” Tom snarls angrily at him.

“I didn’t –” Harry fumbles. He takes in another breath, and then another, and then another. “I didn’t notice.”

Tom scoffs, and says some other mocking thing, but his arm stays on Harry’s shoulder as he guides him out of the pub.

*


	2. Matthew 5:6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They really weren’t joking about the blood sacrifices.”  
> Harry laughs weakly at that. “I don’t think we can use that footage.”

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled

_The Hunt, The Flesh_

Harry is not sure which is worse. Is it the small, small space of an obscure haunted pub and all its localised lore and horror? Or is it the open wildness of a whole forest, that supposedly belongs to some unknown eldritch being that is curse-happy?

It looked like any other forest reservation, but apparently there had been enough rumour of blood rituals and dead bodies of small animals to suggest otherwise. There is an area the size of two football fields that’s restricted from public access by bureaucratic red tape because of that. They had to surrender highly personal information to be allowed in it to film.

One of the questions Harry was made to answer was: do you have a history of attempting suicide? IF YES, on a scale of 1 – 10, how likely are you to commit suicide in the aforementioned forest. 1 being “No, not at all”, 10 being “yes, that is my plan”.

Tom had laughed at the question, and then laughed some more when Harry openly contemplated putting down a solid 5. Eventually, they answered with NO, you know, like liars. But it was for the sake of the footage.

The exterior of the forest is normal enough. The trek from the parking lot to the accursed area is littered with the usual sort of litter. Plastic bags, used condoms, diapers, candy wrappers. Tom pointed to a nearby trash can that had used condoms peppering the vicinity of it.

“I’m not saying that demons or curses are real,” Tom says. “But, I’m beginning to think people are desensitised to them. Like, they just think ‘ah well, me ma says that mug me nanny chipped is gonna bring me 17 years of bad luck if I drink from it, but I’ve been drinking my morning tea from it and I’m right as rain. Let’s go fuck in that forest where the big bad demon is said to appear in’.”

Harry grins. “Ooh, and maybe if the devil appears he might just like what he sees?”

Tom pitches his voice in an “oh no, Mister Potter I didn’t know you had such kinks” spiel and Harry laughs, shoving playfully back at Tom. The crew brought more light along for the shoot and Harry feels mostly fine. A little anxious, a little nervous, as it always is with these things, but Tom is there to cover – just _Tom_ , in his stupidly tall existence, helps by just being _there._

The density of the forest and its intersecting canopy of leaves don’t feel as oppressive as they could in the harsh white beams of the light they have. Harry and Tom trek mostly hands-free, if not for Tom holding the camera and Harry holding the spirit box. And they trade quips and jokes as they trek, leaves crunching underfoot.

It mostly feels normal. Like any other forest.

Harry sees it first before he smells it, and Tom immediately pulls him behind him.

But the light they have casts _everything_ in lurid, graphic detail.

The first thing, upfront, is the severed head of a goat dumped like a declaration under the red tape sectioning off the restricted area. The fur of it glinting in the light, it looks fresh – it looks alive, actually. The eyes are still clear, Harry could make out the horizontal pupils and the bright, bright gold of it. The long lashes framing the eyes. There is a lulling pink tongue between its teeth, dragged unnaturally long across the foliage.

Further beyond, it’s just _red_. Just flesh on flesh on _flesh_. So much blood, Harry feels like he’s going to drown in it.

Harry thinks it’s a cow – multiple cows, maybe. The nearest thing to the goat’s head was a piece of a hoof, the limbs near it flayed neatly with the fur still partially intact, parted like a delicate flower to reveal pink sinew and flesh. The nearest part next to _it_ looks like ribs, wide arcs of pale bone shot through with pale meat.

And then the smell hits him and Harry doubles over, sick.

There’s…there’s an arrangement to this. The hooves and the ribs and the goat’s head were just embellishment. There is a monstrosity of a centrepiece in all that of that. And Harry sees it and he feels _sick_.

In the white-bright light, Harry saw severed bear paws holding up a swell of writhing, frothing flesh, dripping with fresh, dark blood. Chunks of raw viscera, fresh and slick and _red_. Harry thinks he sees them _pulsing_ in front of him, _mutating_. Trails of intestines swaying in the non-wind.

And then – the headpiece.

A shining fish stares back at Harry with round, dead eyes. Clear as day. Its jaw is gaping to reveal too many rows of too-sharp teeth it should not have. It is still bleeding, it bleeds black-on-black onto the wet trails of gore it is mounted on, into the bear paws, into the ground and the white bone and everything around.

Harry feels hungry, but beyond that he can _taste_ the blood in the air, the choking sensation of it something tacky in his throat. He can feel the bleeding-fresh-death all over his skin, soaking through his socks and clothes and clinging against him, into him. His skin _crawls_ everywhere and he doesn’t know the word for how every bit of him _hates_ what he is looking at.

When the shock wears off, someone in the crew _screams_.

Harry _bolts_.

One moment he is in light, the next moment his feet is sinking into foliage and moss and damp, and his eyes are blinking back spots as he sprints through the dark.

His heart jack-rabbits furiously through his bones and his head hurts from the loudness of it, but Harry has-to-keep-running.

He is nine years old again, running as hard as he can away away _away_. If he stops, he’s going to be beaten into a walking piece of hurt and he-cannot-stop.

He hears his name being called, but that only makes him run harder. If _it_ knows his name, whatever _it_ is, it will find him, and Harry-must-run.

Harry hears footsteps crunchcrunchcrunch quick after him in the foliage and his lungs are burning, and he pumps his legs harder, faster. There is a noise to his left and he veers as quickly as he can to the right away-away-away.

His bones are beginning to hurt and he can feel the soles of his feet on fire but-he-cannot-stop.

He trips over something in his panic and he digs his fingers into the undergrowth to crawl upwards and run again. His palms are stinging from being scratched into rough bark and he feels the tell-tale burn of a scrape along the side of his leg and he wants to cry out in pain.

He wants to stop, but there is _something chasing him_. He knows he knows he _knows_.

“HARRY!” One moment, Harry is upright and propelling forward in a sprint, and the next he is sprawled out on the forest floor with Tom Riddle all over him and something rough and hard digging into his back like a stab.

Harry cries and flails and fights against it all, screaming as his nails sink into flesh. He scurries away quickly, limping a bit and he tucks himself quickly into the nearest available darkened corner to hide and nurse his wounds.

There’s a bruise forming on his back, scrapes along his palms and his leg, the soles of his feet are still burning from the activity. He settles his limbs tight and small into himself, and he waits. Quietly, he cups his hands, and murmur: “ _Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled_.”

Suddenly, his wrists are gripped harshly and he hears a low growl as he is pressed bodily deeper into the hollow of the tree. “Harry,” Tom says evenly.

Harry struggles, kicking out against Tom, but he may as well be fighting against concrete. “Harry, Harry, look at me,” Tom presses into Harry and cups his face. “Harry.”

“Tom,” Harry croaks, holding onto Tom’s wrists, nails digging in.

“That’s right, it’s me,” Tom murmurs. “Just me. Just me, Harry.”

Harry squeezes Tom’s wrists and Tom doesn’t complain, just lets him grow accustomed to the solid staccato rhythm of his heart against his – and Harry breathes in time with Tom. “Can you stand?” Tom asks quietly.

“I can try,” Harry offers, and Tom smiles brightly at him. Tom helps him up, supports him when he staggers, and let’s Harry lean on him as they walk.

“The crew is scattered, but we’re going to make our way back to the parking lot and wait for them, yeah?” Tom offers. “They really weren’t joking about the blood sacrifices.”

Harry laughs weakly at that. “I don’t think we can use that footage.” He stumbles a bit, adrenaline fading from his body, leaving his blood acidic and stale in his dry mouth. He swallows and tries to remember when his heart wasn’t trying to hammer out of his ribs.

“Well, might make for better publicity if it’s announced we found actual sites of ritual blood sacrifice,” Tom jests lightly, his treads are shorter to keep pace with Harry, and he is there with a supporting arm as Harry staggers.

“If I fall over, I give you full consent to carry me,” Harry mumbles. Tom laughs. “You won’t fall over, Harry,” Tom promises.

They trek in slow-paced _crunch, crunch, crunch_ that soothes Harry enough to ask: “Tom?”

“Hmm?”

“Your eyes are red.”


	3. Matthew 5:4

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted

_The Desolation, The Eye_

It’s a sedate True Crime episode given the panic and – to put it briefly – hell that had been the Supernatural episode. Tom jokes with the filming crew from behind the desk. When he leans back into his chair again, he hooks his ankle around Harry’s lazily.

“You’re chipper,” Harry notes curiously.

“Supernatural is suspended for the moment,” Tom answers. “As fun as it is to leave the office on field trips with you and watch you lose your shit over random noises, I don’t actually like filming Supernatural.”

“Let me guess, ghosts aren’t real and there’s no need to devote time and effort to them?” Harry rolls his eyes, he cups the file in his hands protectively. Tom shakes his head.

“I don’t like arguing with you,” Tom admits.

Harry couldn’t help the _aww_ that he lets out, even though Tom looks distinctly like he regrets saying anything. “I don’t like arguing with you either,” Harry grins. “Come here, you.” Tom let’s Harry pull him into a hug, pressing his face into his hair. Harry hums happily at the contact and Tom squeezes him a little, much to Harry’s delight.

They start with the usual amount of banter and jesting, Tom rolling his eyes at Harry’s attempts at humour, before Harry eventually announces the topic.

“Let’s delve into the mystery behind the House on Hill Top Road.”

Tom makes a noise, and he tenses around the contact point of their ankles and Harry turns to him curiously. “That’s not as much excitement as you made it out to be.”

“I haven’t even started it!”

Tom gestures. “Give me some teasers.”

“Oh, I’ll tease you alright,” Harry mumbles and flips through his folder more dramatically than necessary. “Let’s see, the house was destroyed in 1974. An exorcism is performed on the house in 2006 and the nun’s right hand was found tied to the wrist of a skeleton. Some weird things happened in it in 2009.”

Tom makes a noise of interest and gestures for Harry to continue. Harry grins triumphantly at Tom and flips back to the first page of his folder.

His mouth opens to form the first words of the narration he has prepared, and something niggles at the tip of his tongue – the opposite feeling of murmuring out a prayer – it’s some half-known primal fear that queries “ _do you really want to know_?”

Harry glances at Tom taking a sip of his tea casually. Harry reaches for his own mug and murmurs a prayer into the tea “ _blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted_ ” and Tom growls at him wordlessly.

That feels like routine. Harry breathes, and begins:

“In April 2009, Anya Vilette was hired to clean a new dormitory on 105 Hill Top Road. She noticed something strange as she was trying to remove a rug from what was supposed to be the common area of the dormitory. The rug was – quote – ‘the most hideous thing I have ever laid eyes on. The patterns on it made no sense. The only way I can describe it is if you looked at colours, and colours _hated_ you.’ End quote.”

Tom chortled. “Like if colours hated you,” Tom murmured, and then started laughing. Harry smiles at him, but it feels wrong. “Do you have a picture?” Tom asked.

“Unfortunately, no. Anya was successful in removing the rug and had burnt the rug, instead of repurposing it. Her decision was based on the fact that no one who was sane could possibly want that rug, that it would be better for the world to just burn it.”

Tom laughed at that, curling into himself on his side of the desk. “I like how she decided that the only solution to the existence of a hideous rug is to burn it. Do you think she approaches everything with the same logic? ‘That building is hideous! Let’s set it on fire!’”

Harry huffs a laughter at that joke, but there was something that doesn’t feel right. He can’t tell if it’s Tom laughing about the rug being burnt, the fact the rug was burnt, or Tom talking in between his narration.

“Anya experienced strange hallucinations in the process of removing the rug. In one account, she mentions feeling as if she was dragged through walls and ceilings, and that she woke up one day, and she went about her daily life, unrecognised by her friends and family – and at some point wondering if she even recognised her friends and family. The feeling went away when she burnt the rug under a tree nearby.”

Tom had been humming curiously as Harry continued, and had stopped when Harry mentioned the rug being burnt.

Harry continues. “This may seem innocuous, but in November 2006, three years before Anya had burnt the rug, Ivo Lensik arrived at the House at 105 Hill Top Road to begin construction work for the student dormitory that Anya would later clean. Ivo Lensik reports a sense of nausea as he entered the vicinity of the house, and refuses to stay in it after dark. On the 23rd of November, Ivo arrives at the house, to begin construction work as usual, only to be met with a priest named Edwin Burroughs. Edwin explains that he would like to perform an exorcism on the house, and Ivo goes to the garden to give Edwin some space.”

Harry glances at Tom, only to find him staring at the folder in Harry’s hands with something like bewilderment on his face.

“It is here that we have two different perspectives to what happened next. The perspective of Edwin Burroughs looks like this: quote ‘The house was a terrible place, and I could not understand why anyone would want to be in there, or why they would invite someone else in to stay. I stepped into the threshold and was struck by the sense that my presence there was unwelcomed. The very walls of the place seemed to ask: what are you doing here, why are you here. Most importantly, the house seemed to ask: who are you – what are you – _who are you?_ I could not have found my way around the house, the corridors and rooms itself did not seem to make sense. I would walk one way, only to find myself back where I began, stairs seem to coil around themselves in an impossible loop. I knew I was alone in the house, the construction worker had left outside for a cigarette break, but I kept getting the feeling that I was not alone. That when I walked around and around the house, I would see the shadow of someone, the tail of a black coat, the heels of their feet.

‘I stopped for a moment, and I realised the person I kept seeing was _myself_. Only I couldn’t recognise myself. I wasn’t sure – I could feel myself speaking – _myself_ , not the…not the person I was seeing in front of me that I knew was myself but couldn’t recognise him…I could feel myself speaking, and I was saying the rites “ – forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; lead us not – ” but my other self was screaming _, screaming_ like there was something horrible and…and _demonic._ He was screaming: “I AM NOT FOR YOU, I AM MARKED”. The next thing I knew…well, the next thing I knew I was in my own house, or…what I think was my house, I walk around the walls of what I knew was my home, but I do not know any familiarity with it…I am staring at my mirror, and I do not know the man reflected.’”

Harry pauses to breathe and turns to Tom for a comment, but Tom is staring at the table curiously, like he was digesting the information. Tom notices that Harry is waiting for a comment and he hums a noise for Harry to continue.

Harry’s fingers find the next lines, and he pauses, glancing at Tom again. He _knows_ something, Harry realises. This is the opposite of what the priest is feeling, there is that scratching in the back of his skull of _déjà vu_ , he knows something, it’s on the tip of his tongue.

_Do you really want to know_?

“The perspective of Ivo Lensik is markedly shorter. He was, as Edwin Burroughs had guessed, having a cigarette break. He noticed that there was a tree in the garden, and he was struck abruptly by complete and utter hatred with it. He chops at it, to find that it has started _bleeding,_ but was not deterred and looped a heavy chain around the tree and pulls it down with his car. In the tree, he finds a complete skeleton of someone who seems to have been buried in the ground for a long time, there was a loose loop of string around the wrist of the skeleton with a severed hand. In the hollows of the ribcage of the skeleton, Ivo finds an ornate wooden box.

“He describes the wooden box so: quote, “the pattern on it was beautifully intricate. I did not know that wooden grains could be made into such patterns – patterns that wove around one another, and tripped over themselves to tangle into inexplicable knots. The box was a perfect, 6 inch by 6 inch by 6 inch cube, the patterns – the patterns on the box seemed to ripple as you turn the box in the light.” Inside the box, he finds a perfectly formed, freshly picked apple, and he recalls next that when he took out the apple, the apple began to rot and inside was thousands and thousands of _spiders_. When he dropped the apple, it burst into dust and maggots and he picks up the box and hurls it over the cliff.

“Ivo Lensik finishes works on the house a week later without incident, he doesn’t hear from Edwin Burroughs again.”

Somehow, Harry can _see_ it. The house on 105 Hill Top Road. The elevation of the estate slightly remote from the rest of the town. There is a forest near the house, Harry knows it sure as anything, there is a forest near the house because the locals had tried to approach the house, but space didn’t work right near the house, and the forest was abandoned, and there’s a tiny pocket of untamed wilderness there.

Harry knows, vividly, the cliff that Ivo Lensik was talking about. The house itself sat atop on elevation, the forest curls around the house protectively, and beyond that – beyond that was an eroding bluff, like the landmass of the earth itself forbids the existence of such a house and is waiting to eat it into the coast and raging ocean bellow.

Harry _knows_ – Harry can practically smell the air, earthy and dewy with wild–

“In 1974,” Harry is saying – is he saying? – he doesn’t…that is his voice, that is his mouth, forming those words, but these words aren’t his, he remembers- remembers finding out something else – “in 1974, the House on Hill Top Road was used by the local diocese as an orphanage. The diocese does not have such accounts, but the oral testaments of the locals corroborate that claim. In summer of 1974, a priest happens upon one of the orphans and asks the child how he was.

“The child tells the priest, smiling impossibly wide, ‘I am very happy here, sir. The matrons give me _everything_ I want, and the children listen to me too, even when they don’t want to. I can make _you_ do what I say too, even if you don’t want to. After all, I am the devil. I am the devil, I am the death of everything you know and I will destroy your world.’”

Harry can _see_ it, can see the wilderness and the oddly-patterned snake coiled around the shoulders of the child. The tousled coil of the child’s hair, and the almost cherubim-like innocence on his face, a striking counter to the harshness in his scab-coloured eyes.

Harry _knows_ the child. His mouth is dry and he doesn’t know how he keeps talking or what he’s even saying this isn’t what he wrote –

“The priest later brings it up to the bishop, who approaches the matrons about the problem. The matrons assure the diocese that they are in the process of managing the problem. They invite the bishop and the priest to come look – and what they saw was the same child the priest has met, being tied down on an intricately patterned table. The child is screaming, and the matrons appear with a box made from the same material as the table. There is an apple in the box.

“The next thing the priest and the bishop knew was that the 105 Hill Top Road was not there anymore. The forest was not there. There was just – there was just a strip of open land, leading out to an eroding bluff. The ocean roaring under it.”

Harry swallows and there’s a shift in the air. His eyes are burning and Harry wants to dig them out.

“Local oral testaments confirm the story. The child’s name, every resident says, is Tom Riddle.”


	4. Matthew 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God

_The Stranger, the Dark_

Harry spends all of his sick leave at once pretending to be ill and skiving off work so he doesn’t have to confront Tom.

When he feels that his emotional armour is robust enough to deal with the confrontation, and he goes to work again, whoever that is sitting in Tom’s desk is not Tom.

That’s

That’s –

That’s okay.

Maybe.

Not really. Harry doesn’t so much breathe a sigh of relief as he just sighs. It would be like Tom to just leave, asshole that he is. He’s a demon, he’s just been found out – and it’s most likely the course of action that he deemed would benefit him most would be to just _leave_.

Harry had wanted answers though – what exactly is Tom? Why did he stay with Buzzfeed? Was he just…just fooling around with Harry? Laughing behind his back as he rolls his eyes talking about how ghosts and demons are not real?

Maybe Tom is laughing somewhere with his demon buddies, “check this out, look how long I’ve fooled this human”. Harry feels physically _sick_ , thinking about how Tom built up so much of his life just for the expressed purpose of fooling this one person.

Harry breathes through all of his issues with Tom, and chides himself into focussing on the backlog of work he has piled on his desk. He’s just beginning to plug his headphones in to focus better when he hears:

“Hey, Tom.”

Harry looks up, and strangles the disappointment in him when he realises it’s just to the person sitting on Tom’s desk. Tom’s not really here. It’s fine, it’s fine, Tom is a common name.

It keeps happening. People go out to Tom’s desk and greet this other Tom, and Harry tries not to vomit from the disappointment choking in him. Eventually, Dolohov approaches him about some bit of footage that needs editing and looks at him oddly. “Are you and Tom fighting?”

Harry looks at him, horrified. They’ve noticed?

Dolohov shakes his head quickly. “I don’t mean any offense! But you’re normally attached at the hip. So I was wondering…”

“Uh, yes,” Harry ducks his head apologetically. “We have a bit of a misunderstanding, I’m sorry that you’ve noticed. We’ll get it sorted out soon, I’m sure it won’t affect us professionally.”

“Ah,” Dolohov nods in understanding. “Go to talk to him, yeah? It’s you, Tom will forgive you even if you commit murder.”

Harry laughs nervously at that. “Well, he’s got to be here for me to talk to him, right?”

Dolohov looks at him oddly. “He’s here?” Dolohov takes in a sharp breath. “I’m – I’m sorry if it’s so bad you’re not even acknowledging him.”

“He’s not here,” Harry asks Dolohov confusedly. Dolohov looks to Tom’s desk. “He’s at his desk,” Dolohov points out.

Harry blinks at Dolohov. “Antonin,” Harry says slowly. “I am having an argument with Tom _Riddle_.”

“Tom Riddle is at his desk,” Dolohov confirms again, his face slowly pinching in. “Look, Harry – you’re a great guy. I don’t want to get involved in whatever this is – but just, whatever Tom did, he probably did it thinking he had your best intentions in mind. It happens in relationships. Just – just talk to him.”

Harry nods, confused, and asks some random thing about the work he gave him and when he needs it by. When Dolohov leaves, Harry takes a quick discreet picture of whoever it was at Tom’s desk, and texts Tom for the first time since Harry found out he isn’t human.

_Who dis?_

Harry doesn’t expect a reply immediately and turns back to the work on his desk, flipping through a document about budget proposals.

He is violently yanked back and away from his desk – yelping as his headphones are ripped out of his head – and spun around. Other Tom pins him down onto his office chair and Harry leans as far away as he can.

Other Tom’s eyes are blue, as opposed to Tom’s amber. “Harry, if you wanted a picture of me, I would gladly pose for you,” Other Tom purrs, his voice is _wrong_. “Unless you wanted a candid photo?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry growls, he’s leaning back-back-back in the office chair, and he can hear the gears pop as he tries to put as much distance as he can between this Other Tom and himself.

“Harry,” Other Tom chides, and holds up Tom’s phone, the text that Harry sent clear on it. Time-stamped a minute ago. “It’s me,” Other Tom says gently, like he’s trying to explain something complicated to a small child. “Harry, you just took a picture of me.”

“That’s Tom’s phone.”

“My phone.”

Harry rolls his eyes at him. _What is wrong with this man? Why does he have Tom’s phone?_ “You’re not Tom.” He moves to get back to his work, but Other Tom is keeping him there.

“I _am_ Tom,” Other Tom says patiently.

“Yes, I know,” Harry shoves Other Tom off. “I heard your name when Nott was talking. You might not know it, but once upon a time, your desk had an asshole sitting on it called Tom Riddle. That’s Tom Riddle’s phone, not yours.”

“Harry,” Other Tom starts, he sounds just as confused as Harry is, if not more so. “I _am_ Tom Riddle.”

Harry laughs in his face, and Other Tom’s face contorts between amusement and frustration. “Yeah, right, and I’m the Queen of England, call me Lilybet. Lay off, _Tom_. I’ve got work to do.”

Harry swivels back to his work, but Other Tom pulls him back again, and Harry jerks out of his chair, baring his teeth angrily.

“What’s your problem, mate?” Harry shouts. Other Tom looks around them in alarm, and Harry notices that everyone is looking at them. He bites back a groan of frustration, ducks his head in apology to everyone else, and jerks his head at the direction of the exit.

Other Tom follows him out obediently. Once outside, he produces a pack of cigarettes and offers one to Harry.

“Tom Riddle doesn’t smoke,” Harry tells Other Tom. “What the hell. Give it.” Harry takes the offered cigarette, Tom lights Harry’s first, and leans in unnecessarily close to light his cigarette on Harry’s.

He looks nothing like Harry’s Tom. Harry’s Tom is cream-skinned, high-cheekbones, porcelain doll pretty. This Tom is blue-eyed, and strategically tousled hair. A pale-skinned stranger with meticulously manicured nails. Harry’s Tom has fingers that are piano player long and just this side of bony.

“Harry,” Not-Tom starts, and his voice is _wrong_. It is pitched low in a husky approximation of Tom’s smooth baritone, a false imitation of intimacy without familiarity. “I get this feeling, that I have done something to upset you.”

“Well, you repeatedly interrupted my work for one. I’m not sure when you were hired, but I haven’t been to work in two weeks, I have a lot piled up on my plate,” Harry snarls at him. He inhales the cigarette, once, twice.

The nicotine brings a smooth kind of clarity to him, and Harry laughs hysterically at the situation. What the hell. He’s smoking with someone claiming to be _his_ Tom, trying to force the same intimacy and trust he’d shared with Tom. _What the hell_.

And Dolohov had been saying Tom would forgive anything Harry did, as if Harry was the one who did something wrong.

“ _Tom_ ’s done a lot to upset me, yes,” Harry agrees. “He lied to me the entire time we’ve known one another. Blimey, maybe you’re the real Tom and – and my Tom never existed.” He feels hurt clawing at the edges of his throat, crowding at his collarbone and pooling at his ribs.

The bizarreness of the situation forces Harry to actually recognise what Tom is to him. Tom, _Harry_ ’s Tom was the person Harry shares his fear with. The smell and breath and touch of Tom is what comforts him when he is terrified, and right now – right here, Harry isn’t afraid, but he wants Tom here now anyways, just to know he’s still Harry’s.

Not-Tom watches him curiously, like Harry is a fascinating specimen. There’s a mild tremble to his hand when he clutches his elbow to himself and smokes.

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of issues to sort out,” Harry exhales a mouthful of smoke.

“So let’s get it out now. I don’t want to fight with you,” Not-Tom tries, and Harry laughs again to his face.

“Bullshit. You keep pretending to be him, but you’re not him,” Harry sneers. “Tom fights with me on _everything_. I won’t bring up this issue again if you keep out of the way.”

Not-Tom grins, half-malice, half-amused. “We work together, Harry. It’s like you said – maybe I’m the real Tom, you cannot blackmail me into being good.”

Harry laughs hollowly to himself. “Wow, even Tom’s pretender is an asshole. Why did I bother expecting anything else?”

“We fight about everything, don’t we?” Not-Tom shrugs.

Harry inhales the cigarette, feels the burn of it down his throat. “This is like therapy,” Harry mutters angrily, and then realises what he just said. A moment of epiphany lights up in him. “This is _just like therapy_.” Sweet wonder rises up in him as he exhales a mouthful of smoke.

“Pardon?”

“You’re Tom Riddle,” Harry exclaims. “You’re Tom Riddle, right?” Harry confirms excitedly. “100% Tom Riddle, organically grown Tom Riddle?”

“Yes?”

“Oh good,” Harry punches him squarely in the jaw, his knuckles crack neatly against not-Tom’s jaw and not-Tom crumples onto the ground.

“What –”

“100% Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Harry doesn’t know why he keeps using percentages, but his heart is pounding in fervent excitement in his ears. “100% _human_ Tom Riddle?”

“Of course –”

“BULL – FUCKING – SHIT!” Harry slams his foot into Not-Tom’s stomach, he feels something crack beneath his booth. “You’re – Not – Human!” Not-Tom grunts in time to Harry kicking him in the gut between each word, there is sickening crunch with each kick that makes Harry giddy. Harry could hear his own blood rushing in his ears and brings the cigarette back to his mouth.

“And you didn’t fucking tell me? Just ran around laughing while we went out looking for ghosts and demons? Was it funny to you? Was it funny that I was pissing myself in some places? Was it funny tricking me and being my friend while you are whatever the fuck you are? What the fuck do you want from me, you sick fuck?”

“Why aren’t you scared?” Not-Tom cries, cradling his stomach. Harry laughs at his face. “Oh-you think you’re the big, bad, and scary here? My boot is very close to your face right now, _Tom_ ,” Harry spits. “What are you, Tom?”

Not-Tom gurgles on his own spit and chokes out: “Human – ”

Harry slams his heel into Tom’s throat and he chokes on that word. “I READ A FUCKING STATEMENT WHERE YOU SAID YOU’RE THE FUCKING DEVIL! YOU DESTROYED HALF A VILLAGE IN 1974!”

Harry breathes heavily as he watches Tom cough out bloody spit, groaning in pain. Harry takes in his last puff of the cigarette and drops it, grinding it underfoot. He feels _great_. Not-Tom is on the ground, looking up at him with unfocused eyes and hands shaking with terror and Harry feels so much better now.

“Anything to add, _Tom_?” Harry asks conversationally.

Not-Tom shakes his head, his body trembling. There’s something popping underneath his skin, his bones visibly shifting under his shirt, and Not-Tom gasps and Harry can hear his bones grinding.

“Good talk,” Harry says cheerfully, he holds out a hand for not-Tom and helps him up.

Once not-Tom is standing again, Harry punches him. _Crack_.

Not-Tom screams as he curls in on himself, cupping his broken nose protectively. “See you later,” Harry singsongs happily, and goes back to his desk.

Harry tells Dolohov that he made up with Tom and asks for the raw footage of the True Crime episode they made. He scours the office and archives for every bit of raw Unsolved series before Not-Tom comes back in.

Not-Tom comes back, eyes bruise-black from the broken nose, and there are audible gasps from their colleagues. He is crowded with concern immediately. Harry notices how Not-Tom’s eyes search for his, but dart away when he realises Harry is looking.

Harry pops into his boss’ office with the box of records. “Hi, still not feeling well,” Harry tells his boss. “May I leave now?” His boss looks sceptical, and Harry clutches a fist to his chest as he starts coughing. His boss tosses a whole box of tissues in his direction and a face mask and yells at him to go away, while backing up as far as he can away from the door.

Not-Tom watches him go, and Harry hurries quickly out. Back in his own apartment, Harry goes through every bit of footage that he has, and finds out that a lot of the footage of Tom has been replaced with Not-Tom. Harry goes through his own phone quickly to find if there if he still has any pictures of Tom, and he doesn’t. What little that he had were all replaced with Not-Tom.

Not-Tom even replaced his profile picture with the candid picture Harry took, as if he’s mocking him.

The only thing left untouched is the raw, unedited footage of the last True Crime episode he did with Tom, when he found out Tom is not human.

He watches himself read the statement, and recalls the almost out-of-body experience that it was. That was not the script he wrote, his research did not yield what he was reading, he knows that clearly. He flips through his own handwritten notes, and it proves how what he reading that day on set was something entirely different.

What his research has said was Tom Riddle the child in 1974 told the priest this: “I am Lord Voldemort, and I am Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.” He remembers it vividly because he had mouthed it to himself _Vol-de-mort_ , Flight of Death.

He remembers finding out that the priests and bishop of the diocese had marched up to the orphanage prepared to question the matrons if they had been teaching the children to worship idols. They had not been there to prosecute Tom Riddle the child.

Whatever he had been reading that day on set, Harry did not write it.

Harry types the statement of what he read out on his phone curiously. It might be useful later on.

He watches the footage again and again, memorising the turn of Tom’s wrists, the curve of his knuckles. He watches the footage to see _his_ Tom laugh, and memorises the minute changes of his expression as Harry reads. It starts with recognition when Harry mentions 105 Hill Top Road, brief confusion, and then intrigue. Amusement was clear on his face as Harry reads about the exorcism, and an almost imperceptible nod of understanding as the priest was banished from the house.

Slow-dawning horror as Harry reads about Tom-Riddle-the-child. There’s a twitch in his hands, as if he was going to lash out and rip the statement out of Harry’s hands.

Harry compares it to the edited footage, of Not-Tom. It is _so clearly_ not Tom, not his Tom. It’s like they shot a completely different actor and superimposed his image onto Tom. Harry almost expects to see his Tom in the background somewhere, guffawing at the mockery of his own role. Maybe if he looks through enough of the footage, he can find his Tom sitting behind Not-Tom, miming in derision.

_Why aren’t you scared?_ Not-Tom had screamed at Harry, so confused and almost horrified at Harry’s violence.

And to be honest, Harry truly wasn’t scared. He was furious, he was hurt, he was frustrated, but he was not scared. The point to that had been – Not-Tom had expected him to be scared.

“You didn’t send him,” Harry realised. Because if Tom had sent Not-Tom, Tom would not have expected Harry to be scared of him. Harry was never ever scared of Tom, betrayed and confused and upset, but not scared. Not even in the nuclear silo when Tom had been _insane_ , Harry would never be scared of Tom, and Tom knows that.

Dolohov had said that Tom would forgive anything Harry did, and to be honest, the reverse of it is true too. “He replaced you,” Harry murmurs.

Whatever not-human entity that Tom is, Not-Tom is the same as he is.

Not-Tom had expected him to be scared though, wanted him to be scared. The relish in Not-Tom’s face when he talked to Harry was clear – he had wanted Harry to be terrified of Not-Tom, and had been completely blindsided when Harry wasn’t.

Harry groans in disgusts when he realises what Not-Tom wants. Not-Tom wants _fear_ , feeds on it. And Tom is the same thing – all their trips and excursions for the Supernatural episodes had been…what? Full-course meals to Tom? Was he just licking his lips at the thought of another road trip with Harry thinking “dinner time”?

“That bastard,” Harry mutters angrily as he watches his Tom laugh in the footage.

But the memory comes to him unbidden of how Tom had hooked his ankle around Harry’s, of the look in his amber eyes – naked and open – _I don’t like arguing with you_. Harry remembers the tightening of Tom’s his arms around him as he pressed his cheek into Harry’s hair, his breath against his scalp.

Harry wants to scream. _Give that back to me. Give Tom back to me._

Angry tears burn in his eyes and Harry bites his knuckles, clenching his eyes shut. _I want Tom back, I want Tom back_ now _._

“Lord Voldemort,” he mumbles into his fist. Just to test the words. _Vol-de-mort_.

Nothing happens. Harry presses his hands to his mouth and realises that his hands are shaking. The video is playing him talking in that eerie matter-of-fact way as he reads the statement and Harry quickly loops the video back again.

He watches himself mutter one of the beatitudes and he sees Tom snarl, and Harry wants to laugh at that. The statement itself had mentioned that prayers don’t do much – Tom’s annoyance had been so unnecessary all this time. And so telling of what he is. The fact Tom isn’t human hadn’t been something he was actively trying to hide from Harry, Harry was just blind.

Harry remembers the glowing crimson of Tom’s eyes as they trekked out of the forest. Harry had pointed it out, and Tom had merely hummed like he _knew_.

Harry was so blind and he wants to laugh at all his.

The footage plays how Tom laughs, and Harry listens to it and holds the sound of it as close to himself as possible, memorises the intonation and pitch of it. And he tells himself again, _that’s Voldemort._

Still, Harry wants Tom back.

He doesn’t know what all this makes him and Tom, but the clearest thought he has is that he wants his Tom _back_.

He searches through his drawers and bag for the key that Tom had given him to his new apartment and finds it. Armed with nothing but his phone, he marches to Tom’s apartment.

Harry lets himself into Tom’s apartment as quietly as he can, hoping against hope that Not-Tom isn’t here. The apartment is cold, empty, and Harry goes through it quickly, he finds a desk near the window, digs through the drawers for _something_ , _anything_ , he’s honestly not sure what he would find.

_A diary_.

Harry wants to snort. Of course Tom Riddle would keep a diary, he probably flips through it avidly like its an autobiography. Maybe Harry will find a line that says “ _today Harry nearly shat himself, his fear tasted like foie gras.”_ It’s pages upon pages of Tom’s looped handwriting, cramped tightly onto the paper.

Harry wonders if there’s more. The volume is thick, but Tom was a child in _1974_ , there is most likely more diaries hidden around the apartment. Unless they were all lost when he moved.

“Harry?” he hears Not-Tom’s voice from the door, and peeks above the table to see Not-Tom at the door. His eyes are no longer blackened now, his nose is even straight. Harry is mildly annoyed at that. “It’s rude to just come uninvited. If you texted me ahead, I would have let you in.”

Harry wonders who the pretence at civility is for. Maybe this Not-Tom actually _likes_ being Tom, and doesn’t care that Harry knows it isn’t human.

“You gave me a key,” Harry tells it.

“Ah,” Not-Tom says. “What are you doing here?”

Harry can hear his heart pounding in his chest as Not-Tom comes closer. Harry stands and lets Not-Tom come closer. “Is that my diary?” Not-Tom notes. Harry snatches it away from him before Not-Tom can touch.

Not-Tom grins. Too many teeth, too wide.

_What the hell_.

Harry grabs Not-Tom by the collar and hauls him in to kiss. Yup, too many teeth. Tongue is too long. Harry pushes at Not-Tom. “Bedroom.”

Not-Tom looks confused, Harry kisses him hard again, bites at Not-Tom’s lower lip and hears him moan. Not-Tom is slightly dazed as he lets Harry shove him in the direction of the bedroom.

Harry shoves him up against the closet and kisses him hard again, tasting blood this time. Not-Tom is making small motions to grind back against Harry when Harry opens the closet and throws him inside.

“Harry!” Not-Tom shouts. “Harry, what is this?”

Harry doesn’t have much time to think when he shoves back against the doors of the closet and pulls out his phone. “Foreplay!” Harry shouts hysterically. Not-Tom slams against the closet doors and Harry stumbles, but he doesn’t budge. He pulls out his phone.

“Elddir mot si, syas, syas tnediser yreve ,eman s’dlihc eht,” Harry starts reading. That damned statement started all this, it might as well end it. “What the fuck,” Not-Tom screams, muffled.

“ – lacol. Eht txen gniht eht tseirp dna – ”

Not-Tom yells, bargains, rages. Harry can barely hear any of it, his focus is divided on reading everything in _reverse_ , and making sure Not-Tom doesn’t slam his way out of the closet, he’s not sure what’s going to happen next, just that this _should_ work.

This _has to._

Tendrils of skin and flesh unravel out of the slim gaps of the closet, and Harry fumbles to slam Tom’s diary into the nearest offending appendage. “ – pohsib eht ot pu ti sgnirb retal tseirp eht.”

Not-Tom starts screaming, a noise of wordless terror.

“ – yortsed lliw I dna wonk uoy gnihtyreve fo htaed eht ma I, lived –”

There is the smell of cooking flesh in the air and the diary is _burning_. There is ink leaking everywhere, and Harry can feels achingly, painfully _real_.

“ – tsud otni tsrub ti ,elppa eht deppord eh nehw. – ”

Harry finishes reading the statement and slaps the diary shut. His knees give out and he drops to sit on it, he is breathing hard and fast and his ears are ringing and he has the giddy sense that he has _no idea_ of what he has done.

Something does though.

Harry notices the smell of it first. Wet sewers and gasoline, strong enough to choke the air with how everything smells _foul_ and _filthy_.

And then it’s the way the dark around him is stretching, crawling up along walls and eating away what little light there is, and then he thinks of how Petunia shuts the door on him and leaves him in the dark – that retreat of all light.

_Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God_. Harry thinks, as a slick crawling thing gathers itself at the corner near him – a dark pulsing bit of no-light. Harry stares at it and thinks he’s going blind trying to figure out how it moves.

The dark is stretching and Harry opens his mouth. “ _Lord Voldemort_.”

Tom’s eyes are amber, and they had glowed red that night in the forest. “Lord Voldemort.”

Tom hates it so, _so much_ when Harry recites scripture. “Lord Voldemort.”

The dark makes a noise that’s oddly human in its frustration but Harry can’t see it, Tom is cupping his face, glowing red eyes bright and blinding in the dark with wonder and he’s touching Harry like he’s something precious. Harry clings to Tom’s hands, holding them in place.

“Hello, Tom,” Harry smiles, and Tom just stares at him, awe-struck as he brushes the hair from Harry’s face. He has talons now, Harry can feel them, but he’s still so, so _gentle_. “You’re not scared,” Tom whispers, amazement clear in his voice. Harry has been so blind. How did he never figure it out?

“You’re not scared,” the inflection is said with so much delight, and Harry leans in and kisses him.

Ah, yes the right amount of teeth, the tongue is not too long as well. Harry laughs at the thought, Goldilocks. Harry reaches out and pulls Tom as close as he can until it’s just the _warm warm warm_ of Tom and Harry laughs.

“ _Stay_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may be wondering, hey wasn't this work titled something else before? Wasn't this done with Luke instead of Matthew?  
> Well, sorry about the inconsistencies of it, but this is how this will play out now.
> 
> ***  
> This all exists because of @q-unsolved's short video "there's a devil in this town"


End file.
